Lawyers acting on behalf of Hollywood movie studios in a high profile case against RealNetworks are charging massive fees–up to US$765 per hour, leading some to speculate that the case could run up several million dollars in lawyers fees.

Wired has unearthed court documents (PDF) which list the fees and hourly rates charged by various legal firms in the case, which centers around a RealNetworks product called RealDVD. RealDVD is currently blocked from being sold by order of U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, pending the result of the court proceedings, although around 3000 copies were sold before sales were blocked.

The application is designed to allow users to duplicate DVDs; something the studios are desperate to stop, alleging a clear violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. RealNetworks assert that the license for the Content Scramble System (CSS) used to encrypt and decrypt DVDs does not prohibit ‘fair use’ backups, though lawyers for the studios strongly disagree.

With DVDs already being phased in favor of the newer Blu-ray technology, not to mention the availability of many 3rd party ripping tools which allow flawless DVD copies to be created, this case may be more about the studio defending principles rather than profits. While the fees detailed in the court filings are far from unusual, they do provide an insight into the kinds of costs involved in pursuing a case such as this, which has already been running for almost a year and looks likely to run for a while yet. In Hollywood, principles don’t come cheap.